If you’ve read our annual reports for the last couple of years, you may recall that our focus during that time was on reopening St. Christopher’s in the aftermath of the pandemic and establishing a framework for ‘doing church’. Over the last 12 months, the immediate threat of Covid has receded, and I am delighted to be able to focus on some of the more proactive and wonderful things now happening at St. Christopher’s.
Worship:
From the outside looking in, one of the most obvious differences in our approach to worship has been the evolution of our relationship with our sister churches across Brislington, St. Luke’s, St. Cuthbert’s and St. Anne’s. In any month with a 5th Sunday, one of the four churches now hosts a collective Sunday worship. This has given our respective congregations a chance to get to know each other a little better and to experience the different and unique styles of worship that each church espouses. Co-operation has also extended to services held last Christmas and more recently at Easter; joint services were held at each church at various parts of the festive period and gave everyone the welcome feeling of fuller churches for worship, whilst taking the pressure off our ministry teams to lead every single service in all 4 churches individually.
Interestingly, the weekly Mid-Week Communion services have turned into our most popular service of the week, taking place at each of the 4 Brislington churches at 10am each week (each church in effect hosting once a month) This poses some interesting questions and opportunities for the Parish Leadership to consider going forward.
St. Christopher’s have always had Andy on the basis that he is ‘half a Vicar’ – i.e., half his time is allocated to St. Christopher’s, with the other half made up of various chaplaincy & mentoring commitments. Following the departure of Laura Verrall-Kelly from St. Luke’s in February, Andy continues his role as (half a) Vicar for St. Christopher’s, but in the remaining half of his time is now supporting St. Luke’s pending appointment of a new vicar later in the year as well as maintaining his other commitments outside St. Christopher’s.
Fortunately, Brenda Munden, our lay minister, has been able to take Sunday morning services in lieu, and Jacqui Wadsworth has taken on the challenge of leading our monthly Messy Church service, a role for which she is very well suited! We thank Brenda, Jacqui and all members of the congregation who have stepped in to support Andy as he supports St. Luke’s pending an appointment of a new vicar later this year.
It would be remiss of me not to remember the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September last year. The possibility of this had been periodically discussed in our Parish Leadership Team meetings over the last few years, and as such, we had a pre-agreed plan in place, including the ringing of bells at set times, a book of remembrance available for signing in the church during the week, and worship to commemorate and celebrate the late Queen’s life. A recording of the special service we held in September is still available on our church website in our ‘service broadcasts’ section should you wish to (re)watch it – we continue to stream services to Facebook, but in addition, our Sunday services are now streamed to our website via YouTube, so that more people can now access / rewatch these without needing to join our Facebook group.
Community Outreach:
The last 12 months have seen some exciting developments in our community outreach. A couple of notable events took place last Autumn, facilitated by Jen Cave-Ayland in our congregation. Amongst these were a wellbeing day in September, where Jen encouraged people to reflect on the link between wellbeing and religion. A Brislington Celebration Day followed closely in October, giving service providers around Brislington the chance to set up stalls in the church and promote themselves to the wider community. Whilst the Celebration Day was not as well attended as we would have hoped, it provides an example of how the church itself could be used in the future to facilitate community events. We hope to be able to host more such events in future.
These events coincided with the cost of living crisis, and St. Christopher’s was keen to do its bit by participating in Bristol City Council’s ‘Welcome Space’ initiative. We successfully applied for grant funding to run welcome space sessions on a Sunday afternoon, with the idea that the church would be open to the community for a couple of hours and provide warmth, food and drink, activities, and signposting to various local and national initiatives which might also help those who attend. The monies were also used to purchase items which were of longer-term use to the church, such as additional sockets for mobile phone charging and a retractable generic ‘welcome’ sign for display outside the church. The sessions ran from November to February and whilst the sessions before Christmas were well attended, those held after Christmas saw fewer people, a trend reflected both locally around Bristol and nationally. Again, on behalf of the Parish Leadership Team, a huge thank you to Jen for driving and leading these events.
The welcome spaces also gave people a chance to go into the church itself and witness the wonder of our Christmas Treefest, which is fast becoming St. Christopher’s tradition. Nearly 40 trees are decorated each year and set up around the church based on a particular theme. Pat Campbell and team’s creativity was there for all to see, and when the sun sets on a December day and the lights go on, it’s a wonderful thing to experience.
Another of our post Covid initiatives, the ‘Time for Tots’ pre-school group held on Monday mornings during term time, is going from strength to strength. We’re delighted that there is still a need for such a group locally post Covid – over 100 people are currently registered, with around 60-70 people attending each week. A small group of dedicated volunteers run these sessions every Monday, not just bringing people together, but raising valuable funds for the church in the process.
Lunch Club, held on the 3rd Wednesday of each month, takes place immediately after the mid week communion when it’s held at St. Christopher’s, which encourages attendees to stay on for a hot meal and good company. Numbers here have also increased significantly over the last 12 months.
The monthly coffee and cake mornings continue to be popular amongst church goers, albeit we have struggled to encourage new faces into the church hall, even with the promise of home made cakes. Again, a huge thank you to Bill & Pat Campbell, Ged White, Pete White and Mel Booth for all their hard work in getting these activities off the ground and keeping everything going!
We have increased the number of regular hall users over the last 12 months, which has helped to provide a more consistent stream of income than we have had to date post Covid. We continue to develop relationships with the 145th St. Christopher’s Sea Scouts who use our hall several evenings a week, and have put a new agreement in place with them which clarifies expectations around hall usage and improves our ability to financially forecast hall income in the future. And
Finally… All of us who contribute in any way to life at St. Christopher’s feel passionately about making St. Christopher’s a part of our community. However, we are small in number, and can only do so much with the people we have, so are always open to any offers of help with the running of the church, whether visible or behind the scenes. If you feel you have a contribution you can make to help us all ‘walk humbly, act wisely, etc, please speak to / message the vicar Andy Schuman, Tamara Barrant (churchwarden), Jon Cave-Ayland (secretary) or anyone involved in the Parish Leadership Team and talk to us about where you think you can make a difference. Contact details for key church personnel can be found on our website http://www.stchristophersbrislington.org.uk in the ‘Team’ section.
Once again, thank you to everyone for all you do to help make St. Christopher’s what it is today. I continue to be humbled by the commitment shown by everyone who comes to St. Christopher’s to make it a special place to worship and grow the church.
Jon Cave-Ayland St. Christopher’s Parochial Church Council Secretary, May 2022
Brislington Community News 